While running through Florida State University way back in December 2013, I noticed that the campus had been plastered with signs announcing that on January 1, 2014 the entire campus would be tobacco free. I was impressed by the extent of the plastering—there were plastic signs adhered to the sidewalks and many surfaces to ensure that all knew of the decree. Naturally, one of the people I saw placing the signs was smoking while doing so.
While running sometimes cause flashbacks, those signs flashed me back to my freshman English class at Marietta College. In one essay, I argued for anti-smoking proposals, including some that were draconian. Apparently possessing the power of prophecy, I argued for area bans on smoking. My motivation was somewhat selfish: I hate the smell of tobacco smoke, and it causes my eyelids to swell and trouble breathing. As such, like a properly political person, I thought it good and just to recast the world according to my desires and beliefs.
I thought the paper was well argued and rational. However, the professor (an avowed liberal) assigned it a grade of 0.62. She also put a frowning face on it. And she called me a fascist. Interestingly, almost everything I proposed in the paper has come to pass (the campus wide ban being the latest). On the one hand, I do feel vindicated—if only because of my prophetic powers. On the other hand, I wobbled a bit between anarchism and authoritarianism in those days and that paper was clearly written during an authoritarian swing. Back in 2014 I reconsidered the ethics of the smoking ban and now, that Florida campuses have been smoke free for 12 years, I decided to revisit this issue.
While there are various ways to warrant area bans on certain behavior, three common justifications include claiming that the behavior is unpleasant, offensive or harmful. Or some combination of the three. In terms of justification, one option is to ban behavior based on its impact on the rights of others. That is, if the behavior is unpleasant, offensive or harmful to others it violates their rights to not be exposed to such behavior.
While I have no desire to observe behavior that is unpleasant, I do not have a right to not be exposed to the merely unpleasant. After all, what is unpleasant is subjective and area bans on the merely unpleasant would result in absurdity. For example, I would find someone wearing a vomit green sweater with neon pink goats unpleasant to view, but an area ban on unpleasant fashion would be absurd. The merely unpleasant does not impose enough on others to warrant banning it (providing that the unpleasantry does not cross over into harm). So, the mere fact that many people find smoking unpleasant does not warrant an area ban on it.
While I have no desire to be exposed to behavior I find offensive, I do not have a right to not be exposed to what is merely offensive. Even the very offensive. While what is offensive might be less subjective than the unpleasant, it still is subjective. As such, as with the merely unpleasant, an area ban on merely offensive behavior would lead to absurdity. For example, if the neon goats on the sweater mentioned above spelled out the words “philosophers are goat f@ckers”, I would find the sweater unpleasant and offensive. However, the merely offensive does not impose enough on my rights to warrant imposing on the rights of the offender. Naturally, offensive behavior can cross over into a violation of rights and that would warrant imposing on the offender. For example, if the sweater wearer insisted on following me and screaming “goat f@cker” at me while I am trying to teach, then that would go from being merely offensive to harassment. Thus, the fact that many people find smoking offensive would not warrant an area ban on smoking. Interestingly, it would also not warrant bans on public nudity, at least those based on something being offensive.
Like most people, I have no desire to be harmed by the behavior of others and I think I have a right to not be harmed (although there are cases in which I can be justly harmed). For those who prefer not to talk of rights, I am also fine with the idea that it would just be wrong to harm me (at least in most cases). As such, it should be no surprise that I think area bans on behavior that harms others are acceptable. The obvious moral grounds would be Mill’s argument about liberty: what concerns only me and does not harm others is my own business and not their business. But actions that harm others become the business of those that are harmed.
While the basic idea that it is acceptable to limit behavior that harms others is appealing, one challenge is sorting out the sort of harms that warrants imposing on others. Going back to offensive behavior, it could be claimed that offensive behavior does cause harm. For example, someone might believe that his children would be harmed if they saw an unmarried couple kissing in public and thus claim that this should be banned from all public areas. As another example, a person might contend that seeing people catching fish would damage her emotionally because of the suffering of the fish and thus fishing should be banned from public areas. While these two examples might seem a bit silly, there are grey areas between the offensive and the clearly harmful.
Fortunately, the situation with smoking is clear cut. Tobacco smoke is physically harmful to those who breathe it in (whether they are smoking or not). As such, when someone is smoking in a public area, they are imposing an unchosen health risk on everyone else in the area of effect. Since the area is public, smokers have no right to do this. To use analogy, while a person has a right to wear the “goat f@cker” sweater mentioned above, they do not have a right to wear one that also constantly sprays poison. To use a less silly analogy, a person in a public area does not have the right to spit on people around them. While they could avoid this by staying away from her, she has no right to “control” the space around her with something that can harm others (spit can transmit disease). As such, it is morally acceptable to impose an area ban on smoking.
But behavior that does not harm others should not be subject to such bans. For example, drinking alcohol in public. Provided that the person is not engaging in otherwise harmful behavior, there seems to be no compelling moral reason to impose such a ban. After all, drinking a beer near people in public causes them no harm. Likewise, campus dress codes also lack a moral justification—provided that the attire does not inflict harm (like the imaginary poison spraying goat sweater). Merely being offensive or even distracting does not seem enough to warrant an area ban on moral grounds.